Armel's Portfolio

A. Introduction

Concept

Nina is a product system consisting of a wearable device and an accompanying mobile application meant to aid in recovery from or maintenance of knee injuries. A mobile app would display information gathered by a wearable device and would have features that track the users’ runs and that instruct the users about what exercises to perform and how to perform them.

Problem

Social distancing during the pandemic has changed peoples exercise routines, made them more stagnant, and prevented them from seeking regular medical care. All of these issues contribute to the potential for injury or reinjury.

Solution

Our goal was to design a product that could give people the information they need to build new routines that would benefit an injured knee.

B. Research

Since we were not able to conduct research with other people due to the pandemic, we drew on our personal experiences with injuries and exercise in order to find a problem to address. We then used our insights to conduct secondary research looking into the most common joint injuries, how they are managed, and how people exercise at home without access to a gym. We determined that knee injuries are one of the most common injuries associated with exercise and are slow to heal due to constant use of the joint.

Our findings led to us looking further into other apps (e.g., FitOn, Zombies! Run!, Nike Run) and interfaces meant to display user activity data.

C. Interface Design

Wireframes

During this phase, we figured out what the different onboarding screens should do and when certain dialogue boxes would appear. We also decided to have running and exercise features and about how many screens each feature would need.

At this point, we assumed that we would have bottom navigation icons but had not committed to what they would be. We also expected to have a voice interface named Nina that would act as a guide throughout the app.

High-Fidelity Screens

Important features: instruction for wearing product, side menu with pain input, pain log, range of motion tracker, activity tracker, exercise videos.

During this phase, we increased the number of screens for the different features, implemented a side menu, made more decisions about what data to represent and how to represent them, created a settings page, represented modals, and added a scrolling screen to part of the onboarding process.

The app has a high-contrast interface with multiple feedback modalities for its features to maintain usability for colorblind users.

D. Future Considerations

Conduct extensive user testing for both the device and the app
Match the style of the smartwatch app to the smartphone app
Consult with medical professionals about the device concept
Design the app to provide full exercise routines to the user
Give the app a way to export data from the smartphone
Fully develop a voice interaction feature
Design a suite of similar products that cater to different joints

Armel Patanian

Nina | Mobile App

Team

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